called on
you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your name will never
be mentioned again in your tribe--it is already forgotten."

As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively between
each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference to the other's
rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride struggled in its lineaments.
His eye, which was contracted with inward anguish, gleamed on the
persons of those whose breath was his fame; and the latter emotion for
an instant predominated. He arose to his feet, and baring his bosom,
looked steadily on the keen, glittering knife, that was already upheld
by his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his heart he
even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less dreadful than he
had anticipated, and fell heavily on his face, at the feet of the rigid
and unyielding form of Uncas.

The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to the
earth, and buried everything in darkness. The whole shuddering group
of spectators glided from the lodge like troubled sprites; and Duncan
thought that he and the yet throbbing body of the victim of an Indian
judgment had now become its only tenants.

CHAPTER 24

"Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
Dissolve the council, and their chief obey."
--Pope's Iliad

A single moment served to convince the youth that he was mistaken. A
hand was laid, with a powerful pressure, on his arm, and the low voice
of Uncas muttered in his ear:

"The Hurons are dogs. The sight of a coward's blood can never make a
warrior tremble. The 'Gray Head' and the Sagamore are safe, and the
rifle of Hawkeye is not asleep. Go--Uncas and the 'Open Hand' are now
strangers. It is enough."

Heyward would gladly have heard more, but a gentle push from his friend
urged him toward the door, and admonished him of the danger that might
attend the discovery of their intercourse. Slowly and reluctantly
yielding to the necessity, he quitted the place, and mingled with the
throng that hovered nigh. The dying fires in the clearing cast a dim and
uncertain light on the dusky figures that were silently stalking to
and fro; and occasionally a brighter gleam than common glanced into the
lodge, and exhibited the figure of Uncas still maintaining its upright
attitude near the dead body of the Huron.

A knot of warriors soon entered the place again, and reissuing,
they bore the senseless remains into the a